Meteorite Misses Waco, Texas
Print
2001 (made)
2001 (made)
Artist/Maker | |
Place of origin |
One of the devices used by artist Cornelia Parker is to subject familiar everyday objects to extremes of temperature, pressure or force. The resulting transformations retain a residual trace of their original form and seem to invite the viewer to reconsider their own relationship with history and mortality.
For the suite of map works called ‘Meteorite Lands in the Middle of Nowhere: The American Series’ Parker heated a tiny meteorite and carefully scorched six selected place names in the USA on as many maps. Some of Parker’s meteorites make direct hits, others are near misses, but the associative power of the place names she has chosen is self-evident: Bagdad, Louisiana, Paris, Texas, and Bethlehem, North Carolina, are all hits; Roswell, New Mexico, Waco, Texas, and Truth or Consequences, also New Mexico, are all misses. In another series Parker has meteorites landing on sites in London.
The work plays with the almost obsessive place meteorites now have in the popular imagination, given their potential capacity to completely annihilate the earth. Parker suggests that by displacing fear onto this external threat, meteors distract humanity from the dangers it poses to itself.
For the suite of map works called ‘Meteorite Lands in the Middle of Nowhere: The American Series’ Parker heated a tiny meteorite and carefully scorched six selected place names in the USA on as many maps. Some of Parker’s meteorites make direct hits, others are near misses, but the associative power of the place names she has chosen is self-evident: Bagdad, Louisiana, Paris, Texas, and Bethlehem, North Carolina, are all hits; Roswell, New Mexico, Waco, Texas, and Truth or Consequences, also New Mexico, are all misses. In another series Parker has meteorites landing on sites in London.
The work plays with the almost obsessive place meteorites now have in the popular imagination, given their potential capacity to completely annihilate the earth. Parker suggests that by displacing fear onto this external threat, meteors distract humanity from the dangers it poses to itself.
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Object details
Categories | |
Object type | |
Titles |
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Materials and techniques | Printed paper scorched with a meteorite |
Brief description | Map work by Cornelia Parker, 'Meteorite Misses Waco, Texas'; 2001 |
Physical description | A printed road atlas of North America, opened to a page showing Waco, Texas and surrounding area. To the left of Waco the surface sheet has been burned through to pages beneath which also bear scorch marks the whole is fixed to a support card and framed in a deep frame. |
Dimensions |
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Copy number | 7/20 |
Marks and inscriptions | 'Meteorite Misses Waco, Texas / 2001 / Cornelia Parker / 7/20' (Title; date; signature; edition number) |
Gallery label |
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Credit line | Purchased through the Julie and Robert Breckman Print Fund |
Production | Made in the USA or the UK. Attribution note: produced in an edition of 20 but each atlas in each 'impression' of the edition is different. |
Subjects depicted | |
Place depicted | |
Summary | One of the devices used by artist Cornelia Parker is to subject familiar everyday objects to extremes of temperature, pressure or force. The resulting transformations retain a residual trace of their original form and seem to invite the viewer to reconsider their own relationship with history and mortality. For the suite of map works called ‘Meteorite Lands in the Middle of Nowhere: The American Series’ Parker heated a tiny meteorite and carefully scorched six selected place names in the USA on as many maps. Some of Parker’s meteorites make direct hits, others are near misses, but the associative power of the place names she has chosen is self-evident: Bagdad, Louisiana, Paris, Texas, and Bethlehem, North Carolina, are all hits; Roswell, New Mexico, Waco, Texas, and Truth or Consequences, also New Mexico, are all misses. In another series Parker has meteorites landing on sites in London. The work plays with the almost obsessive place meteorites now have in the popular imagination, given their potential capacity to completely annihilate the earth. Parker suggests that by displacing fear onto this external threat, meteors distract humanity from the dangers it poses to itself. |
Collection | |
Accession number | E.262-2005 |
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Record created | November 25, 2005 |
Record URL |
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